


golden days

by powelli



Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: M/M, it's a cheesy high school au lmao, v deep v rushed v short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 05:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17400749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powelli/pseuds/powelli
Summary: james' best friend is aleks. regrettably.a story of high school, paintings, christmas, ghostbusters, bleach, required reading, and madonna.





	golden days

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'golden days' by whitney.

“-So I think I’d rather die than go to a fuckin’ NSYNC concert, thanks – ow!”

Aleks, obviously pleased, sat back on the bed, against the headboard. James rubbed at his own arm from where he was stretched out across the bed, feet and head dangling off either side. They were in Aleks’ room. James thought he preferred Aleks’ room to his own – his was all yellowed surfaces and dull wallpaper and stiff mattresses and windows that brought no light in because every single angle was blocked by another building. Aleks, however, had a room that was all red walls and ugly carpets and soft duvets and odd little knickknacks that had built up on every single surface. Sunlight always seemed to stream through his windows, now open to combat the pungent smell of bleach (to no avail).

“It’ll be fuckin’ funny, dude,” Aleks attempted, eyes scrunched up with his wide smile. His hair was wet, plastered to his scalp with the thick hair dye James had helped him apply through gloved hands only ten minutes ago.

“ _No,_ it’ll be funny for like, two minutes, and then we’ll get bored and you’ll ditch me to go home with some random girl,” and then, after a second, “again.”

There’s a moment where Aleks doesn’t reply, and James perhaps thinks he’s gone too far. But this is Aleks, and there is no ‘too far’ with him. He laughs, grin crooked and eyes flashing with _something_. James regards him with a look of falsified disgust. Then Aleks lunges towards him, and James has time to screech something about _bleach, dude_ before he’s rolling away with a squawk to avoid his grabbing hands whilst they both shake with laughter.

-

He’s hunched over, trying to study, or something, and Aleks is watching him.

It’s the second Monday of September, and school had finally passed its phase of _newness_. The new freshmen had started to understand the layout of the school and James didn’t have to constantly remind some four feet tall asshole about where the science building was. Friendships had been made and remade, evident by the number of squeals erupting in the halls as girls captured each other in hugs like they were long-lost lovers, forbidden from seeing each other for a decades. Teachers had started to set homework, and James was in disdain at how he had forgotten how to calculate the area of a circle. Aleks half-comforted him with the loose promise that he would help him with it, but James doubted that Aleks had ever known how to do it.

“-Ramsey has been on me all week, I swear, dude,” Aleks was saying, prodding at a soggy fry on his tray that had sat there, cold, for about ten minutes.

“Mm-hm,” James hummed, underlining a line of _Romeo and Juliet_ he had been reading and rereading for about five minutes. “It’s Monday, man.”

Aleks scoffed. “Last week, then.”

James looks up at him. Aleks is sitting there, tray disregarded in front of him and fingertips thrumming on the table as he looked back at him. His hair was entirely blonde now, a shade of obnoxious platinum that had earned him countless compliments since he stepped foot in the school (twenty minutes late, James knew, because he had waited for him by the steps, only leaving when the bell went and he was shooed inside by his Chemistry teacher). He’s wearing this black jacket James knew belonged to his older sister, but not obviously so, and Levi’s jeans held up with a brown belt. His shirt is half-tucked in, not intentionally and likely from his constant slouching and also from History class that morning when he had tugged down the waistline of his jeans to show James his new boxers, lined with cartoonish bunnies and pastel carrots, much to James’ – and the group of girls a few seats back – giggling. His arched eyebrows are raised, almost expectantly.

“What?” James deadpans.

“I asked,” Aleks seems to repeat something unheard to James’ ears. “Are you gonna eat that?”

 _That_ was the Reese’s Cup sitting, untouched, in James’ plastic lunchbox, among an equally untouched apple. James considered it for a moment, but, shortly afterwards, looked back to his book.

“No, you asshole,” Aleks leant forwards to grab it, and James caught a smell that was so distinctly Aleks – like clean linen and cheap cologne. He snatched the Cup up and unwrapped it delicately. His fingertips left chocolatey echoes on the smooth – and melted -  surface of it. He finds himself looking up and watching Aleks eat it. Aleks looks back at him as he chews, mouth closed and cheeks rolling as they compete in the world’s most tense staring contest ever.

Aleks wins, because as soon as the bell rings, James is sealing his lunchbox with a plastic-y _pop_ ,  shoving it and his book into his backpack, and standing to head to class along with the other rush of students. He can feel Aleks’ eyes on his back as he leaves, and he tries to convince himself he’s sweating because it’s hot. It’s scorching. Practically a heatwave on this day in September.

-

James poked at Aleks’ bass. It wasn’t plugged into anything, and James’ musical talent started and ended at his brief recorder stint in fifth grade that Aleks had stolen within a week of them becoming friends, claiming that he was _doing him a favour_ , but the strings still made a soft vibrating noise when he plucked at them. He moved on, looking over Aleks’ desk. He spent a lot of time in this room, but had somehow failed to actually peer at Aleks’ belongings, brushing them off as useless items and odd things he had collected or won at the arcade or ‘been gifted’ (read: stole) from the art room.

His desk was rather generic. Painted white and covered with old homework assignments that had never been handed in or never even completed. His report card from last year peeked out from under a leaflet for a university prep course. James tried to ignore the leaflet. University meant leaving, obviously, and he was okay with that. Obviously. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. He brushed aside the leaflet, not looking too hard at Aleks’ grades because he wasn’t an asshole, but also because Aleks had already shown it to him. There are some sheets of music tucked under _Sense and Sensibility_ , an unfinished sketch from art class, not especially refined but definitely decent, and a few textbooks, obviously used. He opens one of them, a Mathematics one, and looks over the Post-It Notes and annotations scribbled in between equations. Under a division sequence, he has written _ask james about tmrw._ He’s sure he must have forgotten to do so.

“Okay, so,” Aleks says as he swings around the entrance to his bedroom. “I managed to steal my mom’s snacks, but I had to bribe- you okay?”

James closed the textbook, humming a affirmative noise. “Yeah,  man.”

He turns, and Aleks is standing in the doorway, arms full. James sees a large bag of _Cheetos_ , a large bottle of _Coke_ , and two cups. One is large and plastic and James is pretty sure he has the same one at home, gotten for free with a cereal on the side of a box of _Lucky Charms._ It features the _Ghostbusters_ logo, long since eroded with water damage. The other is similarly large, with a swirling and colourful pattern on it that is so typical of Aleks’ parents. Aleks drops the items on the bed, and James watches them bounce along the navy blue duvet, seeming as if they may fall off until they hit the large creases in the material, stopping in their tracks. Among the treats, obviously hidden in the blend of products, is three Hershey’s bars.

Aleks follows the items in flopping down on the bed, narrowly avoiding falling onto the promotional cup. He watches James with curious eyes.

“What’re you doing?”

“Just lookin’,” James mumbles, looking back to the report for _something_  to make fun of him for. “Thirty lates, Aleksandr? Jesus.”

Aleks grinned, throwing his hands up in an imitation of a guilty shrug. “I keep missing the bus.”

“You have a car.”

“Whatever, dude,” he replied, sitting up on his side, lounging across the bed and reaching for the Cheetos. He opens the packet with a pop. “You done looking through my shit?”

James scoffs. “Not even,”

-

“So,” Aleks says over the line, voice unnatural and unlike him, as phone calls tend to make voices sound. “I don’t feel like going to school today.”

James, in the process of untangling his phone cord and also getting his shirt on, pauses. “…Okay. Then bunk, Aleksandr, I don’t really give a shit.”

“Eh,” Aleks replies, and James _swears_ he can hear an idea brewing, just in his voice. “Bunk with me.”

“ _No_ ,” James says, in his best and firmest voice, finally managing to untangle the cord and moving the phone from his ear briefly to get his arm through his sleeve. “There’s no way, dude.”

“Please, man.” Aleks begs. “It’ll be great. You never go anywhere.”

There’s a twinge of self-consciousness with the words that James tries to bury. “No, no, I refuse to get… like, roped into this. No way. You know what – you know what Ramsey said to me yesterday? That you’re a bad influence – that you give good kids, _like me_ , bad ideas.”

“Bullshit, dude, you’ve never been a good kid,” There’s a moment of quiet. “I’ll pick you up in twenty.”

“Aleks, _no_ , seriously, I-“ the buzz of the line indicates that Aleks has hung up. “Asshole.”

So he gets in Aleks’ car, a shitty green one, and he only protests a little when they start to leave the suburbs, entering the highway on their way to Denver. Aleks shushes him by turning up the radio and laughing when he protests even louder. But he lets him.

They park the car in a garage that charges far too much and Aleks opens the door for him and then they’re off. They have breakfast in a bakery and second breakfast thirty minutes later when they see a taco truck on the side of the road. They visit a zoo, slipping in for five dollars each when Aleks flirts with the girl at the till a little, and laugh at the penguins. They get the bright idea to visit an art gallery, to joke about the modern art and upset the critics that seem to spend most of their time there.

It’s only once they’re in the gallery that they both fall silent, seemingly affected by the suffocating nature all galleries seem to emit. They walk past Picasso and Matisse and Monet and Manet, stopping momentarily to spend a little longer staring at certain pieces that, after a few seconds of not blinking, James finds, morphs into a blur of colour. Eventually, they drift apart. Aleks finds himself at a stained glass window, blues and yellows radiating onto him. From a ways behind him, James sees him silhouetted, a solitary figure against a jewelled backdrop of glass, leather jacket looking iridescent in the way the colour shines against it and small rainbows of gold falling onto his skin from the light glimmering through the piece.

He finds himself at a painting. There’s a small piece of paper tacked next to it, but he can’t find it in himself to read it. The scene itself is rather generic – a countryside backing two figures lounging in the sun – the kind of scene not out of place stuck behind an art teacher’s desk after obviously having been torn from some pretentious auction catalogue. He’s mesmerised by it, though, eyes wide and pitiful as he stares into the frontmost figure’s concerned eyes. She’s looking off into the distance, something unseen approaching them, completely unbeknownst to the sleeper behind her. He nears it, scuffed shoes squeaking on the floorboards, eyes glazing over as, again, all semblance of shape becomes a blur of colour, of random assortments of shapes. A hand becomes a pinkish blob against yellow grass. A tree becomes a smudge of blue. A hat starts to look an awful lot like a baguette. His face is near the painting, so much so that his nose is inches from the surface. Aleks nears his side, a little ways behind him, but he can feel his presence. Can smell the clean linen and cheap cologne.

James sighs, steps away from the painting, and looks ahead to a sculpture that Aleks is already gleefully joining a class trip in giggling at it’s proud nude state.

He supposes, with vague resentment, that he wouldn’t miss this for the world.

-

It’s a rare occasion when they decide to stay at James’ house. But his mom is out, no doubt at work, and the house is completely empty. It’s still a rare sight to see Aleks reclining on his bed like he’s always belonged there, eyes trained on James’ TV (the one thing he had over Aleks’ bedroom) and watching Madonna stalk around to ‘Vogue’ on MTV.

James sits down on the edge of his bed next to him.

“So, how’d the English test go for you?” Aleks asks, voice uncharacteristically soft. The kind of soft only James was allowed to hear.

It’s maybe ten at night, all the windows wide open and cold air making the curtains shudder constantly. Discarded packets of food lay around them like a battleground. The TV is loud though, loud enough to be heard from the street below, James bets. He’s learned not to bet against Aleks, though.

“Shit, dude. There were, like, five questions about Mercutio in there, I don’t even –“ He cut himself off. “What about you?”

Aleks shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I’m gonna fail English.”

James sneaks a glance over to him, suddenly a little uncomfortable watching Madonna flex her hands around her face in an oddly robotic fashion. Aleks is lying, partially on his side, hands folded neatly near his chin and shoulders hunched forwards so most of his face is obscured.

“No, you’re good at English,” He counters, because it was true. He _was_ good at English – last year he had gotten an A. “And you still got time, man, It’s only, like, December, I mean-“

“I’m not,” Aleks interrupts. “Good at English, I mean. I’m fuckin’ bad.”

James frowned, hand braced against the mattress pushing him closer. He was sitting at Aleks’ feet now – which still had his shoes on, Goddamnit, not on the bed – and could see a little more of his face now. It was frowning, crinkled in some places and looking a lot like he was gonna cry, or something.

“You just have to study, dude. I don’t know.”

“I can’t,” Aleks swiftly assures him.

James feels frustration building up inside him. “Why not?”

Aleks seems to feel the same, because his voice rises. “Because I’m _not good at it._ ”

“You _are_ good at it, you fuckin’ asshole.”

Aleks sits up suddenly, and, yeah, those are tears pooling around his eyes. He realises he’s never seen Aleks cry. Not ever. Not in sixth grade when he broke his arm and got it knocked aside by a girl in their class. It looked like it hurt, sure, but he just smiled through the pain and, in his high, slightly accented voice, told her to _watch where you’re goin’, baby_. He had seen it said in a film, once. He didn’t cry when he broke up with his first girlfriend, in the ninth grade. He had simply turned up on James’ doorstep and asked his mom if _James could come over_. They watched Star Wars and ate chocolate and James didn’t even know anything had happened until the girl in question gave him the cold shoulder when he asked her about the Chemistry homework. Aleksandr fucking Marchant didn’t let loose a single tear in all seven years James had known him.

“No, I’m _not_.” He firmly says, voice wobbling like a small child.

James stands, hands balled into fists at his sides. Madonna has stopped singing, and there’s an advert break. The changing light of the television flashes onto Aleks’ reclining figure, and James fixes him with concerned eyes, even as his eyebrows furrow.

“You’re such a shithead.”

He takes a few steps forward and carefully lies down beside Aleks, rage still pooling in his stomach. It settles, though, when Aleks lies down too, heads side-by-side and shoulders not quite brushing each other. He says nothing as Aleks cries into the darkness, sobs convulsing his body with their force. James, against his better judgement, just reaches out and touches Aleks’ hand, a quick brush of fingertips, but Aleks clings on like it’s a lifeline, sweat pooling between their palms but it’s okay, he’s okay. They fall asleep like that, listening to Bowie croon about _Life on Mars_ , and Aleks is gone in the morning.

Monday morning comes too soon, but Aleks simply plonks down next to him in Physics, passes him a bag of Skittles, and falls asleep after mumbling a sleepy, “Hey, James.”

-

James watches Aleks, sometimes. In lessons, mostly. He watches him furrow his brow as he takes notes or watches him nap in especially dull lessons. Sometimes it’s him flirting with a cute girl on the volleyball team, to her dismay.

He’s amusing, in an odd sort of way.

-

“I’m gonna miss you, you know,” James says one day, on an afternoon when he should have been in study hall. Instead, he’s sitting in his backyard, Aleks next to him, both rereading the required books for their English classes. He thinks he may die of boredom.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, if you decide to go to Colorado State – which you should, man – then we’re gonna be kind of far apart.”

It sounded stupid out loud.

Because it was so obvious, maybe. James had plans to go back to Pennsylvania and Aleks knew this. It was all he had talked about since ninth grade.

“We can call,” Aleks offered, turning a page.

“I guess,” James mumbles in response. “Won’t be the same though.”

-

His mom has to work all day on Christmas. And sure, he could stay home on his own and watch TV, but Aleks is a snitch. He tells his mom, who, in an apparent flurry, invites James over for the day. He almost refuses, but then Aleks is forcing himself on the line, joining in her begging. He accepts, says his goodbyes, and hangs up, before promptly screaming into a pillow. Then again, he would take the Marchant’s spare room over his own lonely house any day.

He arrives, Christmas day, with a bottle of wine in tow for Aleks’ parents. He and Aleks had agreed, _no presents_ , because James didn’t have a job and Aleks had blown all his money on a skateboard. Aleks’ mom greets him with awful enthusiasm, and then he’s being ushered into the home and forced to sit between Aleks and his father at dinner, forking slightly-too-dry turkey into his mouth and drinking orange juice with perhaps a drop of champagne in it.

It’s that night, when everybody was long in bed, and Aleks and James are the only ones up still. The TV is on, quiet as it would go, and _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ is playing. James sits there, back against the arm of the couch, watching the fuzzy screen with lidded eyes. Aleks joins him from the kitchen, bottle of wine and two glasses in his hands. He knew the wine – the one he had bought. He tries to protest.

“They won’t miss it, man,” Aleks assures him. James isn’t sure if it’s an insult or not.

So they sit there, and they drink, and they watch _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ in silence. Then they drink some more. And maybe they’re both lightweights, because soon enough, James is in tears hearing Aleks do an impression of their Geography teacher, hands on his hips and one sneaker on the coffee table as he lilts nonsense about rock formations. Aleks eventually laughs himself into a fit, interrupting the fairly accurate caricature and flopping down onto the couch again, beside James, naturally close.

His laughter dies down, and then he’s just staring at James, and James is staring back.

Aleks lunges on him, pressing an open mouthed kiss to his cheek, messy and miscalculated and just barely missing the corner of his mouth. James squawks in surprise, and tries to dodge with little success, arms instinctively wrapping around Aleks if only to stop him tumbling over the couch and receiving death by coffee table. Aleks swings a leg over James’ lap, head tilted back and a wide grin on his face. James looks at him in the neon glow of Christmas lights and of the frozen TV screen, and thinks he may be the most beautiful thing in the world.

“We should,” Aleks’ hand flutters over his collarbone, making James temporarily forget what he was planning to say. “Go to bed.”

Aleks looks at him, eyes glazed, and they’re both so drunk, perhaps too drunk, because Aleks swallows and tilts his head forward again.

“I’m in love with you,”

He says, and his voice is soft.

James blinks at him, trying to think of what to say, but he doesn’t have time, because Aleks is pressing a sweet kiss to his lips, lips chapped and a little dry but he tastes like white wine and mint and cranberry all at once and it’s hard not to kiss back because James realises that, with a slackness of his jaw and the subconscious wandering of his hands that move to cup Alek’s teary cheeks,  he’s in love with him too.

-

Aleks gets an B+ in English.

-

They go to the NSYNC concert, and it’s awful.

But Aleks is there, he’s always there, up until the moment he hugs James goodbye when his car is packed with luggage and a map to Philadelphia. He’s there, and he’s whispering _I love you_ , and his brown roots are clear through his bleached hair, and he smells like clean linen and cheap cologne.

There’s sunlight on his face.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> painting: 'summer in the fields' by sir george clausen.  
> -  
> ok so i wrote this in one night. what a cool kid i know
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at powellio :)


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